SiteGround Review

SiteGround was founded in 2004, and now serves more than 800,000 customers and their domains. The hosting provider offers shared hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated hosting and WordPress hosting, with servers located in Chicago, Amsterdam, Singapore, London, and Milan. SiteGround is also one of three hosting providers recommended by WordPress.

One of the major benefits of hosting your site with SiteGround is its solution for monitoring and reacting to reduced website speed. When SiteGround recognizes your site is underperforming, its technology locates and fixes the bug to keep your site performing at optimum speed. Additionally, the company offers managed WordPress hosting on all plans.

SiteGround Packages and Pricing

SiteGround has a transparent pricing structure, and all hosting packages come standard with:

24/7 support

Free WordPress and Joomla app installs

Free email accounts

Unmetered traffic

Free SSL certificate

cPanel & SSH

Free website builder

SSD storage

30-day money back guarantee

Free daily backup

Free Cloudflare CDN

Unlimited MySQL DB

For all of this, you’ll pay just $3.95/month but have the option to upgrade your plan and add a host of additional paid and free features such as priority tech support.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is perfect for small business owners and even franchise owners who manage multiple websites. This hosting option puts each domain under one roof for immediate access.

The one downside to shared hosting is that it is not designed for high-traffic websites. So, when your website exceeds over 10,000 hits per day, it will begin to slow down on a shared hosting plan. Consequently, you might want to consider managed or other forms of hosting that are better suited for a great deal of traffic (anything over 10,000 visits a day).

SiteGround offers three levels for shared hosting: Startup, GrowBig and GoGeek. They are all low-cost and are accompanied by a range of features for users — a perfect opportunity for small business owners on a budget.

A one-month trial can also be purchased, for the same monthly price as advertised on annual plans, but you will be charged an additional $14.95 setup fee. The advertised monthly price remains the same no matter the length of your plan (12/24/36 months). However, the price per month is only valid for the initial invoiced term, after which, regular renewal prices apply. Let’s dive into a detailed outline of what you’ll get with each hosting service.

Shared Hosting Pricing

Plan

Pricing

Specs

Startup

$3.95/month for the first invoice

$9.95/month for renewal

$14.95/year domain registration

One Website

Free Site Transfer

10GB Web Space

Supports 10,000 Visits Monthly

GrowBig

$5.95/month for the first invoice

$14.95/month for renewal

$14.95/year domain registration

Multiple websites

Free Site Transfer

20GB Web Space

Supports 20,000 Visits Monthly

Priority Tech Support

SuperCacher for Great Speed

One Year of Free Wildcard SSL

30 Day Backup Copies

GoGeek

$11.95/month for the first invoice

$29.95/month for renewal

$14.95/year domain registration

Multiple Websites

30GB Web Space

Supports 100,000 Visits Monthly

Free Site Transfer

Fewer Accounts on Server

Free PCI Compliance

WordPress & Joomla Staging

One-Click Git Repo Creation

Cloud Hosting

SiteGround’s cloud hosting is swift and customizable. Though SiteGround’s cloud hosting plans are slightly more expensive than those of their competitors, is vital to note that you’ll benefit from advanced features such as enhanced security and 24/7 VIP support.

Plans start at $80.00 and cap at $240.00 — there’s even the option to create your own plan. We can’t say this enough, SiteGround’s Cloud Hosting option is seriously one of the most customizable on the market. Like any other premium service, the more it is enhanced, the more expensive the plan becomes.

At the same time, you must realize that you are also purchasing peace of mind in the form of security. This is because Cloud Hosting is among one of the most secure forms of hosting.

The longer the terms of your hosting plan, the cheaper it’ll become. Here’s a breakdown of pricing for one, three, six and twelve months of service for SiteGround’s Cloud Hosting:

Cloud Hosting Pricing

Plan

Pricing

(monthly)

Pricing

(3-months)

Pricing

(6-12 months)

Specs

Entry

$80/month

$76/month

$72/month

2 Cores of CPU

4 GB of Memory

40 GB of SSD Space

5TB Data Transfer

Business

$120.00/month

$114.00/month

$108.00/month

3 Cores of CPU

6 GB of Memory

60 GB of SSD Space

5TB Data Transfer

Business Plus

$160.00/month

$152.00/month

$144.00/month

4 Cores of CPU

8 GB of Memory

80 GB of SSD Space

Super Power

$240.00/month

$228.00/month

$216.00/month

8 Cores of CPU

10 GB of Memory

120 GB of SSD Space

You can even go as far as to customize the above plans to add more cores of CPU, Memory and SSD Space. This is, of course, subjective, and depends on your bottom line and overall business goals.

Additionally, there are myriad of other features that users can access once they purchase a cloud hosting package. The following features come pre-installed:

Pre-Installed Features

More Pre-Installed Features

Daily Backups

Free CDN & Multiple Locations

Fully-Managed Servers

24/7 VIP Support

Apache/Nginx & CentOS

Exim Mail Server

Private DNS Server Setup

IPTables Firewall

WHM & cPanel

Softaculous Auto Installer

MySQL 5 & PostgreSQL

5 PHP Versions & HHVM

Free Domain Name

1 Dedicated IP

Free SSL Certificates

SSH Access

Another upper hand of SiteGround’s cloud hosting is its near-seamless integration with platforms like WordPress, for which it offers 1-click installation, staging, SSH & WP-CLI, Auto Updates, SuperCacher and GIT Integrated.

SiteGround also features integration for other platforms like Magento, Drupal and Joomla, offering 1-click installation for the latter as well.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting is a great option for those who want to have faster speed. It also comes with the comfort of knowing data are stored on a server reserved especially for them. This sort of reassurance is priceless.

SiteGround’s dedicated hosting is offered in three levels: Entry Server, Power Server, and Super Power Server. Each of them has their own unique nuances that make them perfect for small business owners who are looking for faster speeds, reliability and expecting high traffic to their website.

Dedicated Hosting Pricing

Plan

Pricing

(monthly)

Pricing

(3-months)

Pricing

(6-12 months)

Specs

Entry Server

$229.00/month

$223.00/month

$217.00/month

Intel Xeon E3-1230 CPU

3.20Ghz CPU Clock Speed

4 CPU Cores

8 CPU Threads

8MB CPU Cache

4GB DDR3 RAM

500GB SATA II HHD

5TB Bandwidth

Power Server

$329.00/month

$320.00/month

$312.00/month

Intel Xeon E3-1270 CPU

3.50Ghz CPU Clock Speed

4 CPU Cores

8 CPU Threads

8MB CPU Cache

16GB DDR3 RAM

1TB SATA II HHD

5TB Bandwidth

Super Power Server

$429.00/month

$418.00/month

$407.50/month

2 x Intel Xeon e5-2620 CPU

2.00Ghz CPU Clock Speed

2×6 CPU Cores

2×12 CPU Threads

15MB COY Cache

16Gb DDR3 RAM

4x500Gb SATA III/ RAID 10 HDD

5TB Bandwidth

Unfortunately, adding features like integration with Joomla, WordPress and General Booster cost an additional $50.00/Month. You can even add on domain privacy for an additional $12.00/year.

As with SiteGround’s other plans, users can select the term length most comfortable for them, and choose the physical location of their desired data center.

Last, it is imperative that you take into account the required one-time fee of $99.00 for setup.

WordPress Hosting

SiteGround is unique in that it offers managed WordPress hosting with all of its plans, no matter the type of hosting. The 1-click WordPress installation and free site transfer come standard on all plans, whilst the SuperCacher plugin is offered for free on all plans above StartUp. Users who purchase a GoGeek, any cloud hosting or any dedicated hosting plan also have access to WP staging and Git integration.

WordPress Hosting Pricing

Plan

Pricing

Features

Startup

$3.95/month

WordPress Free Install

WordPress Free Transfer

WordPress Auto Update

WordPress Advanced Security

WordPress Related SUpport

WP-CLI Pre-installed

GrowBig

$5.95/month

Priority Tech Support

SuperCacher for Great Speed

One Year of Free Wildcard SSL

30 Day Backup Copies

GoGeek

$5.95/month

Fewer Accounts on Server

Free PCI Compliance

WordPress & Joomla Staging
One-Click Git Repo Creation

Tip: Like other hosting providers, SiteGround usually runs frequent promotions on its plans, so it’s best to keep an eye out for deals.

Standout Hosting Features

Thirty-Day Backup

This feature is invaluable and is a great tool for business owners who need that extra bit of security. Data are also backed up for shared and cloud hosting accounts, and users can access and restore past backups from the cPanel.

WordPress Integrations

This cuts out long waiting periods and multiple downloads, giving users the chance to quickly and securely download and install WordPress and related plugins.

Affordable

With its most basic managed WordPress plan, SiteGround is only $3.95 per month on an annual plan.

30 Day Money Back Guarantee

You have thirty days to request your money back but should reference the terms and conditions to ensure you meet the requirements for a refund. Otherwise, you should enjoy the service through the end of your agreement and find another hosting provider when your agreement is over.

Control Panel

Through SiteGround’s Control Panel, users can design their website and get daily backups, ensuring the safety of your most valuable content.

From within the cPanel, users can manage subdomains, addon domains, parked domains. You can also auto install Joomla and WordPress integrations. You can also find some of your most important features there, which include:

IP address

Server name/time

Disk space

Email

Customer Support

With 24/7 live chat, phone, and email-based support, you can reach out to troubleshooting experts around the clock.

Diversified Server Locations

SiteGround has five server locations around the world- Chicago, Amsterdam, Singapore, London, and Milan.

Domain Registration

If you don’t already have a domain, you’ll need to purchase one at an additional cost of $14.95 annually.

You can also choose from a number of popular, country-specific and special domains, that will give your website a final personal touch.

In case you already have a domain name, you can transfer it — and it’s free. The only thing to do now is to protect your personal privacy and contact info by registering personal info like name, email, phone number and more so the general public doesn’t gain access to your information. Privacy Protection costs $1/month.

SiteGround Payment Terms & Conditions

You should take note of a few different things, namely SiteGround’s refund policy. If you meet any of the following criteria, you can apply for your money back within thirty days of purchase:

Initial orders for hosting services are covered within thirty days from the day we activate the service(s)

Renewal orders are not covered

Domain name and Domain Privacy (ID Protect) fees are not refundable and may be due upon cancellation even if waived initially as part of a special promotion

Cloud and Dedicated Hosting Services, Paid Support or Third Party Services are not covered by the money back guarantee

Reseller packages are only covered if the complete Reseller package is canceled. The guarantee does not apply to termination of individual accounts in a Reseller package

Users have thirty days to request their money back, which gives you peace of mind if you’re not 100 percent satisfied with the service.

Automatic renewal is scheduled 15 days prior to expiration, and if you wish for services not to renew automatically, you must alert customer service.

Lastly, regarding payment, SiteGround accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Switch/Solo, checks/money orders and many other acceptable forms of payment. Although not listed, you can use PayPal to pay monthly for hosting services. For this, you must contact the sales department.

Uptime

SiteGround offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

Pros & Cons

Pros

Managed WordPress hosting on all plans

Daily backups

High uptime

Great managed hosting services

User friendly

Knowledgeable, 24/7 support

Lots of free add-ons

Free to transfer existing websites

Cons

While shared hosting plans are more than affordable, cloud, dedicated and other hosting options are significantly more expensive (especially in comparison to competitors)

Limited storage space

Bottom Line

SiteGround’s customer service is top-notch, with highly trained and knowledgeable professionals offering 24/7 assistance. Members of their support team can, therefore, provide insight that only a seasoned hosting professional could provide, helping better optimize your site for speed and performance.

In comparison to other hosting companies, SiteGround’s shared hosting plans are more than affordable, making them an attractive option for small business owners.

SiteGround’s speed, freebies, and uptime will serve you well when you need them most. Lastly, with managed WordPress services offered on all hosting accounts- and not to mention WordPress’s seal of approval- SiteGround is a top option for business owners running a WordPress website.